


After All This Time, I Can Finally See You Now

by PuppyWillGraham



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU with canon elements, Angst, Gen, Hannibal rethinks about the consequences, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major trust issues, Maybe a potential friendship?, We just don't know yet, Will Knows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyWillGraham/pseuds/PuppyWillGraham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham has plenty of time to think while he's in jail - and now that the encephalitis has been treated, he can finally think clearly, with focus, to put a few things about his supposed friendship-slash-potential relationship with Hannibal Lecter into perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After All This Time, I Can Finally See You Now

Broken. That's how Will Graham feels. Broken and exhausted. 

 

He hadn't been in jail that long - maybe a couple of days? - but it felt like only yesterday that Dr. Lecter's lies had become obvious to him. ' _Why me?_ ' He often asked himself.

 

Why?

 

That's the only thing he didn't _truly_ understand, completely.

 

Betrayed. That's how Will Graham feels. Trashed, scattered, and betrayed. 

 

How long had Dr. Lecter planned to keep his encephalitis from him? How long was the "good" doctor going to keep lying to his face, acting like he was an anchor when he was anything but that?

 

How long?

 

~ 

 

Days turn into weeks. That's how long Will Graham has been strapped up in a straight jacket, and a face mask, while residing in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. 

 

"To prevent you from posing any more of a danger than you already are," is their reasoning. 

 

Before the face mask was a protocol, Will Graham had bitten at the shoulder pads of his straight jacket, threads becoming loose, just like the tendrils in his mind as he goes. 

  
_To prevent you from posing any more of a danger than you already are_... 'More than likely,' he thought to himself more often than not, 'it was because I'd ruined a good straight jacket.'

 

Anyone else at the BSHCI would tell you it was because Will Graham had snapped at the night nurse's fingers, like a dog, when she was trying to feed him.

 

~

 

Weeks soon turn into months. Will Graham had gotten used to the face mask, and the straight jacket. 

 

It was routine. Stability. The encephalitis had long been treated since.

 

He had nothing better or else to do now, than think.

 

He could now think with clarity, with focus, and his thoughts didn't turn to Garrett Jacob-Hobbs, or Abigail Hobbs - at least, not his waking thoughts - the only two victims he was more than sure he was able to kill, than any of the other murders he'd been accused of. 

 

~

 

Days turn to nights. Waking thoughts turn to nightmares.

 

Will Graham's nightmares were often about the man who had caused him to be arrested, and end up in the padded cell.

 

Some were old reoccurring nightmares about Jacob-Hobbs, some were about Abigail Hobbs.

 

But the majority of his nightmares were about Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and his old friend, the Nightmare Stag, and a strange, mythical creature that looked half like a man, and half like a beast, with dark, overwhelmingly large horns - or were they antlers? - protruding from the top of his head. 

 

At least the hallucinations had stopped, and it was _just_ a nightmare.

 

~

 

"When am I going to get visitors?"

 

That's the first thing Will Graham has said in months. 

 

"Soon," Dr. Chilton had wheezed, ferret-like eyes watching the gaunt and malnourished man crouched before him, straight jacket and mask in place,  impeccable.

 

Stormy blue-grey eyes didn't meet those ferret-like eyes.

 

Will Graham had gone silent again. 

 

Dr. Chilton mutters something, who his first visitor will be, before walking back down the corridor - _stay far from the cages these dangerous men reside in, and don't interact with any of them unless it's needed_ \- keeping to his own rule. 

 

~

 

It's bleak and boring in Will Graham's padded cell when his first visitor arrives, clearing their throat delicately, as if the sudden vocal noise could startle the caged man. Nothing can startle Will Graham anymore. Nothing.

 

"Hello, Will."

 

Blue-grey meets maroon, and the former is cataclysmic.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! comments, kudos and bookmarks are swell.


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